[Elecraft] K3/KPA-1500 - Unexpected shift in per-band power

Pete Smith N4ZR pete.n4zr at gmail.com
Wed Mar 30 10:17:46 EDT 2022


For some time now, I've been noticing that after operating on 15M, my 
output power on 80  with my K3/KPA-1500 would have to be turned down 
substantially to get within legal limits.  Today I decided to test this, 
using a dummy load.  I tweaked my input power on 15M to about 1450 
watts, and then went down to 80, where my output power hit over 1800 
watts with the Power control on the K3 unchanged.  I turned down my K3 
to get 1450 watts out on 80, and went back to 15.  Output power showed 
just over 1000 watts. Tweaked the K3's power setting to restore 15M 
output power to 1450 watts and went back to 80.  KPA1500 again showing 
1800 watts out.

I had thought that K3 power settings on each band were independently 
stored and returned to the stored value for a given band when changing 
to that band, but this evidence suggests that is not true.  I don't 
think I'm overlooking something antenna-specific, since I was using the 
same dummy load on both bands, and I've noticed this phenomenon when 
using real antennas too.

-- 
73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the new Reverse Beacon Network
web server at <http://beta.reversebeacon.net>.
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